Charles W. Chestnutt’s The Conjure Woman The first half of Charles W. Chestnutt’s The Conjure Woman begins with the interaction between a Northern white male and the conventional portrayal of a slave. In the novel an old ex-plantation slave, Julius, recounts stories that he says he heard as a child. The audience of the stories is the white Northern male, who is the narrator of the story, and his sickly wife, Annie. The stories are told for many purposes but my favorite reason behind the telling of the tales is Julius’ attempt and in most cases achievement to acquire several things by this sly action. From the time that Julian the slave meets John, the Northerner and narrator, the stories begin to roll off his tongue. Julian sets off immediately telling the couple, John and Annie, that he “would’n ‘vise [them] to buy dis yer ole vimya’d, ‘caze de goopher’s on it yit.” Julian quickly leaps into telling the couple on how the vineyard became “cunj’d” because all the slaves were eating the “scuppernon” the master at the time, “Mars Dugal’ McAdoo” got Aunt Peggy, the “cunju...
The author portrays the essence of the desperation felt by a great many Virginians at this time in the circumstances of one Jacob Hite, who resorted to staging a raid and jailbreak to keep his confiscated property in the form of horses and slaves from being auctioned off by the sheriff to satisfy his debts in the “Introduction”. From there the volume is broken into for logical divisions which follow good chronological order, with a concluding “Epilogue” i...
History has underrepresented females throughout countless centuries. In contrast, Hawthorne allows them to take on essential roles in “Young Goodman Brown,” “The Minister’s Black Veil,” “and “The Birthmark.” The way he presents them distinguishes his stories from others at his time. He proves all of his female characters almost flawless, deeply connects the male protagonists to them, and uses them to reveal the males’ hidden sides.
Therefore, the use of these characters confuses the reader even more. Whose concepts of the tales are more believing, John, Annie or Julius? The concept of slavery is unclear and this leaves the reader grasping for the meaning behind the conjure tales. Chesnutt's message behind the tales should have been clearly defined. If his purpose according to some critics is to "elevate whites," then what is he really trying to do in these conjure tales? The concept of using Julius to break stereotypes of black Americans is a little farfetched. This goal is not accomplished in neither of the conjure tales. The stereotypes are upheld in these tales. Chesnutt doesn't seem to "elevate" the whites; instead he is reaffirming their beliefs toward blacks. This doesn't help the black community if Chesnutt is trying to change condition of blacks through his writings.
Mr. Carter's plantation as "rotten little two-room shacks'''. The only difference for her and her
Laurence Hill’s novel, The Book of Negroes, uses first-person narrator to depict the whole life ofAminata Diallo, beginning with Bayo, a small village in West Africa, abducting from her family at eleven years old. She witnessed the death of her parents with her own eyes when she was stolen. She was then sent to America and began her slave life. She went through a lot: she lost her children and was informed that her husband was dead. At last she gained freedom again and became an abolitionist against the slave trade. This book uses slave narrative as its genre to present a powerful woman’s life.She was a slave, yes, but she was also an abolitionist. She always held hope in the heart, she resist her dehumanization.
A recurring theme in, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, is Harriet Jacobs's reflections on what slavery meant to her as well as all women in bondage. Continuously, Jacobs expresses her deep hatred of slavery, and all of its implications. She dreads such an institution so much that she sometimes regards death as a better alternative than a life in bondage. For Harriet, slavery was different than many African Americans. She did not spend her life harvesting cotton on a large plantation. She was not flogged and beaten regularly like many slaves. She was not actively kept from illiteracy. Actually, Harriet always was treated relatively well. She performed most of her work inside and was rarely ever punished, at the request of her licentious master. Furthermore, she was taught to read and sew, and to perform other tasks associated with a ?ladies? work. Outwardly, it appeared that Harriet had it pretty good, in light of what many slaves had succumbed to. However, Ironically Harriet believes these fortunes were actually her curse. The fact that she was well kept and light skinned as well as being attractive lead to her victimization as a sexual object. Consequently, Harriet became a prospective concubine for Dr. Norcom. She points out that life under slavery was as bad as any slave could hope for. Harriet talks about her life as slave by saying, ?You never knew what it is to be a slave; to be entirely unprotected by law or custom; to have the laws reduce you to the condition of chattel, entirely subject to the will of another.? (Jacobs p. 55).
Hunter-Willis, Miya. Writing the Wrongs: A Comparison of Two Female Slave Narratives. Diss. Marshall University, 2008. Dissertations & Theses: Full Text, ProQuest. Web. 22 Sep. 2011.
Just like any other narrative, “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl,” by Harriet Jacobs is a narrative telling about a slave 's story and what slaves go through as they execute the socioeconomic dictates of their masters. It is important to note that more than five thousand former slaves who were enslaved in North America had given an account of their slave life during the 18th and 19th centuries. Many of their narratives were published on books and newspaper articles. Most of the stories of these slaves were centered on the experiences of life in plantations, small farms owned by the middle class natives, mines and factories in the cities. It is undeniable that without those slave narratives, people today will not be able to know how slaves
Harriet Jacobs’ feminist approach to her autobiographical narrative Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl brought to life the bondage placed on women, in particular enslaved black women, during the nineteenth-century America. In an effort to raise awareness about the conditions of enslaved women and to promote the cause of abolition, Jacobs decided to have her personal story of sexual exploitation and escape published. The author’s slave narrative focuses on the experiences of women, the treatment of sexual exploitation, its importance on family life and maternal principles, and its appeal to white, female readers. Likewise, through the use of the Feminist/Gender Theory, issues relating to gender and sexuality can be applied to the author’s slave narrative. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and its lack of reception during its own time disclose the strict boundaries and unique challenges Harriet Jacobs encountered and overcame as a woman in antebellum America.
Non-slave-owning women clung to the belief that owning slaves would relieve them of domestic chores and transform them into the figure of the Southern plantation mistress. Although wholly exaggerated, the women who did own slaves projected themselves to the rest of the South through the image of the mythical Southern mistress in order to uphold their role in society”
In the novel, the author proposes that the African American female slave’s need to overcome three obstacles was what unavoidably separated her from the rest of society; she was black, female, and a slave, in a white male dominating society. The novel “locates black women at the intersection of racial and sexual ideologies and politics (12).” White begins by illustrating the Europeans’ two major stereotypes o...
In several of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short stories, “Young Goodman Brown” in particular, the female character seems to be the occasion for the disillusionment of the protagonist. Young Goodman Brown desires order and predictability because he wants control over his existence. However, intangibles such as emotions, the future and especially his mortality provoke anxiety in Brown, because they are unpredictable and not concrete. If Brown could control the intangible, he could establish order and predictability in his world. Woman is the ideal substitute for the intangible, for she is mysterious, and yet she is concrete and subject to control particularly because of the conventions of the marriage relationship. For Brown, then, to master woman is to master the intangible.
Deborah White uses various examples of situations regarding these characterizations from other pieces of work such as “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” by Harriet Jacobs, interviews, and other historical references. Through these examples, Deborah White is able to effectively relay, through historical context, how these women struggled with the assumption that all black female slaves were “Jezebels” until proven otherwise. Regarded as highly sexual women, those who were categorized as a “Jezebel” woman initially started because of African traditions prior to their enslavement and also excused “miscegenation, the sexual exploitation of black women, and the mulatto population”. Deborah White argues that these women faced a very unique situation because their sexual behavior could result in being treated better or worse, depending on the situation and the master; because population growth was inevitable, white men seemed to believe that this proved their “lewd and licentious behavior”. Also, the conditions in which these women lived “helped imprint the Jezebel image on the white mind” even though this environment was created by these men “which ensured female slave behavior fulfilled their expectations”. In contrast to the “Jezebel” figure, white men also created the “Mammy” figure who was a loyal servant to the white family as well as a surrogate mother for the both black and white children. This position for a black female slave helped “endorse the service of black women in Southern households” (61). Therefore, both of these characterizations were to justify the treatment of black
In Harriet Jacobs Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, the author subjects the reader to a dystopian slave narrative based on a true story of a woman’s struggle for self-identity, self-preservation and freedom. This non-fictional personal account chronicles the journey of Harriet Jacobs (1813-1897) life of servitude and degradation in the state of North Carolina to the shackle-free promise land of liberty in the North. The reoccurring theme throughout that I strive to exploit is how the women’s sphere, known as the Cult of True Womanhood (Domesticity), is a corrupt concept that is full of white bias and privilege that has been compromised by the harsh oppression of slavery’s racial barrier. Women and the female race are falling for man’s
"Characteristics of the Slave Narrative." Washington State University - Pullman, Washington. Web. 28 Sept. 2011. http://public.wsu.edu/~campbelld/amlit/narrativelist.htm